Gove confirms mandatory housebuilding targets for councils will be abolished in face of Tory rebellion – as it happened

Workers building new houses in Derbyshire. The government has caved to Tory pressure to water down building targets. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

8.22pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• Rishi Sunak has agreed to amend the levelling up bill to remove mandatory housebuilding targets for councils in response to a rebellion said to be backed by more than 100 MPs. Labour said that was “unconscionable” given the housing crisis, and proof that Sunak is “in office but not in power”. (See 5.14pm.)

• Labour has unveiled its blueprint for an overhaul of the UK constitution, based on tackling regional inequalities and moving political power away from London, and described by Keir Starmer as an end to short-term “sticking plaster politics.

• Rejoining the EU’s single market would not boost UK economic growth, Keir Starmer has argued, saying it would create “years of uncertainty” for UK businesses, which would be worse than the closer trade links that would come.

• A meeting of Ministry of Justice officials at which Dominic Raab’s conduct was discussed was told “people had died” in the Afghanistan evacuation because of his refusal to review documents in formats which he did not like, the Guardian has been told.

• A report partially endorsed by the UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, calling for a radical crackdown on those seeking asylum has been criticised by a UN body for “factual and legal errors”.

8.16pm GMT

Rishi Sunak is to drop compulsory housebuilding targets to see off an embarrassing backbench rebellion, prompting criticism he is putting party unity over the national interest.

The move, which comes in the middle of a national housing crisis, will spark fresh concerns that the prime minister is too weak to take on unruly Conservative backbenchers.

The capitulation came after up to 100 Tory MPs threatened to back an amendment that would in effect force the government to abolish the target of building 300,000 homes a year in England.

Instead, the target will be “advisory” and councils will be allowed to build fewer homes if they can show hitting it would significantly change the character of an area, an exemption expected to particularly apply to rural and suburban communities.

Read more: Sunak backs down on housebuilding targets after pressure from Tory MPs